A newborn baby is completely dependent on the care of an adult. That is why a child does everything to get the mother or father to care for and protect him or her. But sometimes things also go wrong with children’s attachment. Attachment, what is it and what can go wrong?
Attachment behavior
A young child does everything he can to keep a parent near him so he can provide food and care. Children do this by:
- To cry
- To call
- To laugh
- By grabbing
The child lives in symbiosis with the mother
Newborn children live for a long time in a unity or symbiosis with their mother. That is necessary, because they cannot take care of themselves. The child looks for a place that is as safe and warm as possible with the mother who provides food.
Harlow’s experiment
However, attachment behavior is more than just the need for food. For example, in 1958 Harlow did a test in the US with rhesus monkeys. The newborn monkeys were separated from their mothers 12 hours after birth. They came into a cage with two artificial monkeys. One was made of soft material, the other of a hard material. Both fake mothers were able to feed the monkeys. Still, all the monkeys preferred the gentle mothers. Even if the food was removed.
Monkeys flee to the ground or to the mother
The test showed that the soft coat showed more bonding behavior. Monkeys that had a gentle mother and found themselves in a fearful situation always returned to that gentleness. Monkeys that had a harsh mother did not do this and threw themselves on the ground, clinging to themselves and making rhythmic rocking movements. This experiment therefore showed that adhesion is mainly determined by warmth and safety. A warm and secure bond with the mother turned out to be essential for the later behavior of the young monkeys. The monkeys that had not been able to bond in a safe and warm way with a gentle mother later showed antisocial and aggressive behavior. Moreover, they turned out to be unable to raise their own children. They were disinterested or abused or rejected their children.
Bowlby’s attachment theory
John Bowlby also developed an attachment theory. This English psychiatrist who followed psychoanalysis based his work on children who were suddenly separated from their parents and placed in homes (as was often the case during the Second World War). Bowlby concluded that children who were separated from their mothers between the sixth and eighth months of life and lived away from the family for a long time and were not constantly cared for as a mother would be, fell into severe depression. They had symptoms such as:
- Sadness
- Withdrawal
- Blank stare
- Stiffened posture
- Dejection
- They didn’t want to eat
- They couldn’t sleep
Problems later in life because the bonding has not gone well
When a child subsequently returned to the family, these symptoms often disappeared again, but most children still developed problems later in life.
Affective neglect; the consequences
When a child is affectively neglected by his parents or caregivers, this has major consequences for the child’s psychological development. Affective neglect means that a child does not receive the warmth and security in the form of positive attention from the caregiver and grows up with fear and uncertainty. The child is torn between loneliness and the unpredictable behavior of the parents. The child must instead give love to himself and often later in life cannot give love to others very well.
Inadequate conscience formation
If the relationship between the mother and the child is not good, it is also more difficult for conscience to form. What the child does is sometimes disapproved, other times approved. The child may therefore develop a low sense of self-confidence and a great sense of guilt. To get rid of these feelings, the child often breaks rules and is then punished to get rid of the feelings of guilt.